The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1887-03-08
RAILROAD WRECK.
A Terrible Crash on the Iron
Mountain Road.
DEATHS DOINGs ON SUNDAY.
Session-Wrecked - Beating the
Record-Other News Items
Railroad Wreck

ST. LOUIS, March 6.-The railroad
accident on the Iron Mountain Railroad
near Desoto, No., which was briefly
referred to late last night, while not
being at all unusual in regard to the
fatal casualties, proves to have been
quite remarkable IN respect to several
circumstances which attended it. 1t
occurred at Victoria, thirty miles south
of here little after 10 O'Clock and was
occasioned by the giving way under the
train of trestle which crossed Joachim
Creek at that point. The train was the
Texas express, and consisted of baggage,
express and mail cars, smoker, Two pas
senger coaches and four sleepers, carry
had fallen all day and the creek was
much swollen. At Herhatite, the first
station this side of the trestle, the
engineer received orders to run
cautiously as the rain had been heavy,
and the creek was out of its banks
Engineer Kelly says he ran slowly
beyond that point, and both he and his
fireman, William Hatch, watched the
track very carefully. AS he approached
the trestle Kelly observed that the track
was entirely straight and level, without
the slightest fear, or hesitation. but
when his engine reached about the
middle of the trestle he felt the whole
structure sinking beneath him. In an
instant he opened the valve operating
the air brakes, to the full width and
brought the train to SO quick stop
that the front end of one of the end
cars was crushed in by the sudden
shock. This saved the coaches, but the
baggage, mail, express and smoking
cars went into the raging torrent below,
carrying with them all the men on
board. Engineer Kelly and fireman
Hoch went down with the engine and
we're submerged in the food. Kelly, in
his struggles to free himself, found that
one of bis feet was fast and at the same
instant and just as he realized that he
must drown, the engine turned over and
his foot was released, and he came to
the surface. Selling a passing log he
chung to it desperately and was swept
down the torrent and lodged against a
tree $50 yards below, with scarcely
strength enough to move. He clasped
his legs and arms around limb of the
tree, became unconscious and was not
restored until two or three hours after
he had been taken from the tree, when
he found himself kindly cared for in
house in Victoria. His face and head
were severely cut. Two of his toes
were cut from one of his feet, and he
was badly bruised in various parts of
his body. Fireman Hatch was carried
about 500 yards down the stream lodged
ia a mass of brush or drift and was
rescued soon after the food subsidized.
The postal car was swept away some
distance, and as the water rushed
through it from end to end, the mail
was literally washed out and it is now
scattered over miles of territory or
imbedded in the mud of the creek It is
regarded as an almost total loss, the
whole of it being completely soaked and
the addresses of letters obliterated.
Postal clerks Mccullough, Shaffer and
Ryan were badly bruised and almost
drowned, and being stripped for work
they lost all their clothes, their gold
watches and about $3.50 in money which
were carried away by the food. The
smoker, which is said to contain some
twenty persons, was swept down about
800 feet below the trestle and ell Its
occupants are believed to have been
saved. They succeeded in getting out
side of the car and chung to its top until
they were rescued. There are some
doubts regarding the baggage man and
express messenger being saved, but
late despatch from the wreck says that
none OF the train men were lost. The
cause of the unprecedented flood is
believed to have been cloud burst,
which took place late in the evening and
filled the creek which runs between the
rugged hills for miles, so full that 1t
became raging torrent with current
of over twenty miles an hour, and swept
everything before it.
a full list of the casualties cannot be
obtained, but aside from Henry Byron,
of jamestown, n. Y, who was found
drowned in the smoker, and Byrnes, a
brakeman, who had foot cut off, none
other than those mentioned above were
in any way seriously injured. Nearly
one half of those in the smoker lost
most of their clothes, they being torn
from their persons, either getting out
of the car or by the rushing water
through which they were dragged
ashore by rope. A farmer named
Andrew White, of BaiIey's Station,
did heroic work in saving the passengers,
he having swan several times to the
smoker and each time returned with
one of the unfortunates who were cling
ing to the roof of the car. Several pas
sengers in the sleepers also aided ma
terially in the work, and Conductor
Green, of the train, and all of the train
crew, labored Ike Troians in rescuing
those in the cars. The mail is said to
have been the largest ever sent over
the rad, and the loses will fall heavy
on this city, where about three-quarters
of the matter originated.
An express package without address
or anything on it by which it can be
identified containing S37 900 was found
to-day, and it is not unlikely that others
will be discovered in the creek or in
the woods.